Let Me Live
by Naisa
Summary: "What would you say if you were dying?" "Please God, let me live." A one-shot about the day John faced death during the Afghan war. He came out of it with far more than a scar on his shoulder, as from that day his life had changed forever...


_I had a random idea for this one shot the other day - about what happened on the day that John was shot in the shoulder. I haven't seen a story on fanfiction about this so I thought I might try and write one myself :)_

_Special thanks to F.T.L Everdeen-Holmes who read this through for me :)_

_For anyone who's interested I'm currently writing another Sherlock story, Twelve Weeks , so feel free to check it out :) I've also written other stories, Sherlock and non-Sherlock, and currently have a book I'm trying to get published on sale on the kindle, there are details on my profile if you're interested :)_

_Anyway, I hope you like this one shot, would love to know what you think so please review! :D_

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><p><span>Let Me Live<span>

_"What would you say if you were dying?"_

_"Please God, let me live."_

_"Oh please, use your imagination!"_

_"I don't have to."_

It was a scorching hot day when it happened. But that wasn't really any significance, because every day was a scorching hot day in Afghanistan, not that you ever got used to it. The heat was one of the worst things for John is the desert, with the constant burning sun pressing down on him all the time, the heavy camouflage uniform, bullet-proof vests and helmet didn't help either, it was like they directed the heat right towards him, as if the sun was following him. There was no way to escape it.

John had lost count how many months he had been working out in the desert now, last time he had counted it was four, but he wasn't sure if he should count the number of months he was there before he took a few weeks leave, and soon after the four months he had lost count. John had to admit that he was getting pretty fed up with this war now, he had always wanted to fight for his country, but he had forgotten the reasons why this war started a long time before he had lost count of the number of months he had been out in the desert. Perhaps he just needed another break - a holiday - staying somewhere cold for a little while until he felt ready to go back into the desert and fight this possibly pointless war again.

It didn't help that John had two jobs - he was in the army _and_ he was a doctor. Which meant that every day he would go out into the desert, see people die, dying or risk his own life, and then when he went back to base he would go to the makeshift hospital filled with heat and metal beds to see people die or dying. John did his best, he was a good doctor and there were helicopters to take the worse off to better hospitals, but there wasn't enough decent technology to help and sometimes the helicopters just didn't come fast enough. John Watson may be trying his best and doing the right thing, but he sometimes felt he was surrounded by too much death.

He should have known it would be his turn soon.

There were about five men with him on that patrol, there wasn't much talking, they were too busy looking out for any signs of danger, especially any bombs beneath their feet, those were the worst. John had seen many a man lose limbs because of those demons hiding in the sand, waiting. He was in the middle of the line of men and pressed his gun close against his chest, as if it would provide some sort of protection against those bombs. He had become a good shot during his training and living in the desert. Didn't make the actual shooting of someone any easier or better.

But it wasn't the bombs he should be worried about on that day, or his own gun. Suddenly something caught his attention in the corner of his eye and made him stop. Looking back, John wasn't sure if he actually saw something out in the desert, or it was actually instinct that made him look up.

"John? What is it?" Asked the private behind him, a nice young man called Simon Crow, hair as bright and blond as the sand and kind, worried blue eyes, he couldn't be more than twenty-five. John would never find out what happened to him in this war after this day.

"I thought I saw..." John hesitated, not sure if he had spotted something out in the desert. If there was actually nothing there he would look like a fool, not only that, he would have held up the patrol for no good reason and that could get him into trouble. Everyone had stopped now and had turned their attention to him. He was the oldest here, and although he got on with most people, he really didn't want to be teased and told he was going senile because he thought he saw something that wasn't actually there.

But then he gazed out into the desert again and saw that there was something there. A strange shape emerging from behind a rocky outcrop. Whatever or whoever it was, it had spotted the patrol. He could tell by the tense silence around him others had spotted it too.

Then before anyone could do anything else, a loud crack filled the silence and something slammed into John, knocking him off his feet.

For the next few minutes it was if John had descended into Hell. He couldn't tell if it was the shock, the sudden pain or hitting his head on something on the ground, but for a few seconds he had passed out. When his senses returned all he could hear around him was the shouts of men and spattering of gunfire. They had come under attack. He could hardly see anything though, he was surrounded by a world of rock and sand, there were men standing above him, focusing on the fight, but he couldn't tell who they were. There wasn't any pain, not yet, but when he tried to get up he felt like there was something weighing him down.

Then John felt something warm trickling down him beneath his bullet-proof vest, something warmer than the sun and as he turned his head to look, a terrible pain rushed through him at this tiny movement, making him gasp. Then he saw he was covered in blood.

The shock hit him. All of a sudden John found himself hyperventilating, taking great gasps of the dry desert air over and over again but it wasn't enough. His hands were shaking and he felt like crying out in panic as the bright-red blood spread over his chest.

He couldn't tell where he had been hit, just that someone in the desert had shot him and the bullet had missed his bullet-proof vest and embedded itself somewhere within him. The pain felt too close to his heart, which made John panic even more. There was far too much blood and they were in the middle of nowhere, already the world around him was growing a little dim, becoming a little quieter. He was dying.

Someone bent down beside him - Captain Heath, leader of the patrol. John could just see the man's worried face beneath his helmet. He had to shout over the gunfire, but by the sounds of it the fight was almost over, less bullets were being fired and no one else had fallen down beside John.

"Doctor Watson, can you hear me?" He asked, gripping John's uninjured arm as if to offer some moral support, it wasn't working.

"I can't breathe," John managed to pant, realising as soon as he said it that was a foolish thing to say. Clearly he was breathing, he was just panicking. He was panicking because he was dying, and that made him panic all the more.

John was the only doctor on that patrol, afterwards he felt like a fool that he couldn't look after himself, he knew how to deal with gunshot wounds. But at the time he was in shock and couldn't think straight. The blood just kept flowing and the pain wouldn't leave him.

Heath leaned over and pressed something hard where John's wound was. The extra pressure made John cry out in pain, but he tried not to struggle. Suddenly the gunfire ceased all together, and John looked up to see the rest of the patrol staring down at him, their eyes full of fear. They knew he was dying too, and there was nothing they could do to help.

Their frozen stares only lasted a few seconds though, as Captain Heath was then barking orders at them to help, and everyone swung into action.

Some people tried to keep talking to John, telling him to hold on and that everything was going to be OK. Others were just focusing on the job in hand - trying to save his life. They said nothing because they probably knew the longer he stayed out here the less chance he would have, and they wanted to distance themselves from the wounded. John himself was feeling strangely distant, knowing that it was probably the loss of blood that was making his head swim and his eyelids droop. Despite people telling him to hold on, to stay awake, it was surprisingly difficult to do, and the darkness just kept creeping closer...

When John regained consciousness again it was with a stifled cry of pain. He was being carried through the desert on a stretcher. Where that had come from he had no idea, and he could tell there were more people with him now, but from where he was lying he couldn't see them all, so he didn't know how many. There was a makeshift bandage across his shoulder and chest, but already there was a circle of blood was seeping through the material. That bullet had come far too close to his heart, he wasn't sure where exactly he had been hit, but the fact that he was still bleeding filled John with terror. If the bullet had damaged a vital organ there would be no hope.

John didn't really have a faith. He tried not to think about whether there's some sort of God or afterlife, he just preferred focusing on living. However in moments of crisis, he did find himself starting to pray, and as he felt the darkness growing in the corners of his vision once more, and his senses growing dim, John was begging rather than praying.

"Please God, let me live." He muttered under his breath, hoping that no one around him could hear the wild, panicked talk of a dying man. "I don't want to die, I can't do this. Please, let me live..."

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><p>In the end it turned out John was lucky, the bullet had missed his heart, just hit his shoulder instead. Looking back John felt like such a fool, a coward. He had panicked because he thought he was dying when the bullet was nowhere near his heart, not really. You see in action films heroes getting shot in the shoulder and within minutes back on their feet again, as if nothing happened. Turns out it's not like that, any gunshot wound wherever it is hurts and causes a lot of damage.<p>

The bullet was removed in the makeshift hospital (thank goodness they weren't out of painkillers and antibiotics) before John was sent on a plane back to England, where he could get some proper care. Again he discovered he was lucky - no major nerve damage, just a lot of blood loss which was fixed with a blood transfusion. John would have liked to have gone home after that, perhaps go back to Afghanistan in a few weeks, but it turned out he had a lot of therapy to go to, both physical and psychological, and John realised he didn't really have a home to go. He couldn't shake the feeling he had on the plane that this would be the last time he would be in Afghanistan, and it wasn't long before he discovered that he was right. After a few weeks of physiotherapy he decided to retire. He was too old for this.

It wasn't long after that that John was allowed to leave the hospital, he still had to see his therapist (and he suspected they would probably still keep making him see her until his nightmares disappeared) and was given some exercises for his shoulder, but other than that they handed him an army pension, a pat on the back and that was it.

On the day John Watson left the hospital for the last time he had no idea of where his life might be going from then. He had to get a council flat because he had nowhere to live and had no hobbies that would keep him going through the long, empty days that lay ahead of him. He had this strange feeling inside him that he had left something behind in Afghanistan, and after a few days he realised he hadn't let an object behind - he had left part of himself. Now there would be no more adrenaline rushing through his veins, there would be no need to keep his senses alert for any sign of danger, there was no more excitement. John thought he would be grateful when he finally got rid of these things, but it turns out he would miss them. He didn't say anything though, he thought admitting it would make him look foolish.

He said goodbye to the hospital staff and a few of the patients on his ward just before he went. His doctor raised her eyebrow in concern when she saw that he had to leave with a walking stick, but said nothing.

John walked through the automatic doors, leaving the hospital and entering the wide world, which somehow seemed different to how he left it. He expected that a gunshot wound in his shoulder would be the most exciting thing that would ever happen to him now. There can't be much for a retired army doctor to do, and nothing really happened to him.

How wrong he was.


End file.
